It was 2019 when Hideo Kojima and his talented co-workers at Kojima Productions released Death Stranding. It was the first game Kojima had been involved with since his public split with Konami. It was a strange game, to say the least, and was also one that was done with a lot of involvement with Sony, hence launching as a PS4 exclusive (though, it did make its way to PC not long afterward). Now, though, it seems Kojima could be going to the competition, at least if certain rumors are to be believed.
According to known writer and leaker Jeff Grubb at VentureBeat, he has source that claims Kojima is in talks now with Microsoft for his next game, whatever it may be. He said this was in response to recent speculation that the recently revealed Abandoned was secretly a Kojima Productions game and the reveal was part of some viral marketing. He says this isn’t the case, especially with these talks.
“The biggest piece of evidence I have that Abandoned is not a Kojima joint is that Kojima is in talks with Microsoft about publishing his next game, according to a source familiar with the matter. And yes, that statue on Phil Spencer’s shelf was referencing a potential deal with the legendary developer. I cannot confirm if Xbox closed the deal yet, but my understanding is that Kojima is the focus of a Microsoft plan to leverage Japanese talent.”
As always, keep all rumors with a grain of salt, even though Grubb has generally been reliable in the past. Kojima has had a long association with Sony, which made their Death Stranding partnership pretty obvious, but Kojima has released titles on Xbox in the past, and as a free agent, will no doubt go where the funding is. Kojima Productions has hinted few times that their next game could be revealed soon, so if there’s any truth to this, we could find out relatively soon.